Archives for February 2017

It struck me this week what an extraordinary sense of smell cats must have. For the first time in ages Mr & Mrs Pet Parent did a roast lamb leg last weekend. Even the mere act of unwrapping said lamb leg from its plastic jacket was enough to get Pussa & Soph up from their respective slumbers. When the carving starts, heavens above, keeping Pussa & Soph away when that’s going on is like trying to swat flies away while standing still in a sheep paddock. In the middle of summer. In outback Queensland. To add insult to injury I cut off the remaining meat from the bone and had it in a plastic container thinking that I’d let it cool down a bit more before I put it in the fridge. Knowing that Pussa was lurking with evil intent I purposely put the container in front of me while I finished the washing up. Before you could say nick off cat she jumped up, stole a huge chunk of lamb out of the container RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Bloody cat.

So what’s the story with this amazing sense of smell cats have?

It’s estimated that cats have about 200 million olfactory cells resulting in their ability to detect scent being far superior to we mere mortals. We, by comparison, have a paltry 5 million

Like many other creatures, cats have a vomeronasal organ which sits on the roof of their mouth. This also aids sense of smell and detection of pheromones

Cats have evolved this super sense not solely for their ability to hunt prey (they also make use of their super eyesight for this job) but as a means of defence. Detection of scent allows cats to identify the proximity of another cat and even to find where home is

Interestingly, cats have relatively few taste receptors compared to humans and so appetite is stimulated by smell rather than taste. Frankly, I think it’s got a lot to do with their sense of hearing too because as soon as the lid peels off the can, Pussa is in like Flynn.

Always present in these types of discussions is the perennial dog vs cat debate. So, the million dollar question is have cats got a better sense of smell than dogs? This time around I’m afraid the dogs have it. Consensus seems to be that dogs have in excess of 300 million olfactory cells. But hang on, wouldn’t that just be because they have bigger noses? Ahhh, yeah.

Roam if you want to, roam around the world….so the B-52’s suggest we do anyway. There are also lots of cats and cat owners who feel the same. This was one of the issues covered in a report put out last week on the results of an Australian study done into a number of cat behaviours, including how far cats roam from home.

The study was done in-conjunction with the University of South Australia and over 400 humans “volunteered” their cats to wear GPS trackers supplied by the researchers. The volunteer cats wore the trackers for a week to identify and plot their movements. After the researchers analysed the captured data they calculated the median cat home-range. That is, the area within which half the cats travelled wider than and half the cats travelled less than. This was found to be just over 1ha which they expressed as half the size of the Adelaide Oval, or for those of us who are neither South Australian nor a cricket lover, the area of 8 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Many of the cat owners were very surprised by the extent of their Favourite Feline’s wanderings. One lady even wrote a note to the researchers when returning the GPS unit apologising that her cat didn’t go outside much during the week. The cat in question was one of the cats who roamed the furthest in the group, with its owner being unaware her cat was spending most nights cruising the neighbourhood.

The findings from this study on one level are funny with owners bemused by their cats who appear to have an entirely independent social life away from their owners. Being an advocate for keeping cats indoors I’m still amazed that so many people happily let their cats out to roam unrestricted. They risk the safety of their cats by increasing the likelihood that their Favourite Feline gets run over, or gets into fights with other cats or dogs. Studies such as these tend to increase discussion in the community about how we better manage pet ownership generally. There is community concern on a number of fronts including the protection of our native wildlife from cat attacks but also being considerate for others who may not share the same level of affection for cats as others. A number of local councils in Australia have already introduced cat curfews. Yarra Ranges Council has a 24 hour curfew requiring cat owners to keep their cats within their property at all times. Wollondilly Council in south-west Sydney is also hearing a proposal for a night curfew for cats. At risk of having high expectations, wouldn’t it be good if cat owners could take it upon themselves to keep their cats indoors rather than having this forced upon them by government? Yeah, I know….never gonna happen.

Even cats who have been outside cats can readily adapt to becoming an indoor-only cat. Check out these cats as a good example. Cats are perfectly happy living on the inside provided they have plenty of stimulus. Ensure you provide your Favourite Feline with a range of cat toys such as our Fur Balls and Mice which are excellent for independent play, and Cat Teasers for interactive play and an opportunity for physical activity.

If you are super keen and want to read the full 80-page Cat Tracker report, you can here.

Even as a middle aged lady Soph still loves her food…especially on her Cat Habitat Feed Board.

Because of Pussa & Soph’s recent protests against the food they had been being fed for the last 7 years, Mr Pet Parent and I seemed to have spent more time that usual combing the cat food aisles of our local big box pet store. I don’t think it had really struck me until that point what a huge variety there is in cat food. There is of course WAY more for dogs, but that’s the same with anything dog/cat related…and a whole different issue. Outside of the infinite combination of protein types pet food manufacturers can put together, the other factor they want us to include in making our purchase decision is the life stage of our cat. Do we need to make this a consideration or is it just another piece of clever marketing to guilt us into buying one product over another?

Conventional Wisdom of Life Stage Cat Feeding

You will often see food labelled as being appropriate for Kittens, Adults and Seniors. Central to these distinctions is that the three age groups have different nutritional requirements and food can be formulated with more or less of certain nutrients as needed. For example:

Kittens: After 8 to 12 weeks when kittens start to wean off mother’s milk, they need energy dense (higher calorie) and calcium rich food to aid cell growth and to accommodate their generally high activity levels;

Adults: From 1 year old to around 8 years is considered to be the Adult phase. With their growth phase over and in all likelihood a less active cat, especially in the latter years of this phase, there is reduced calorie intake requirement for energy production;

Seniors: Cats 10 years and more move into their senior stage and especially if they have developed joint issues will have even further reduced activity levels, and as such less demand for energy dense food.

I have some basic knowledge around human nutrition and the above seems completely logical and equally applicable to other mammals. You will be doing a huge disservice to your cat, or any pet, if you let them get fat. This is why you need to be careful to consider their calorie intake compared to expenditure at all ages. Being overweight is often the root cause of many common ailments such as joint problems, diabetes, skin problems etc, and so having food formulated according to, amongst other considerations, its energy density is really important.

My conclusion is that yes, products which are formulated for specific life stages are worthwhile. I think though it could be a bit of a grey area about when your cat moves from Adult to Senior. I suggest that you use your own judgement on this. Pussa & Soph both turn 9 this year. Neither are overweight, have mobility issues or basically any medical issue of note. Because of this, I don’t have any plans to switch across to Seniors food any time soon. I’m sure that they want to be considered middle aged ladies for as long as we can all stretch that out.

We’ve all heard various stories of animals doing extraordinary things for their humans – detecting cancer, alerting them to fire, dragging children from imminent danger and so forth. More often than not they’re stories about dogs, and while that’s great, Pussa & Soph got me to go in search of cats who’ve done something amazing. As I researched this what I ended up finding were stories, not of great heroism, but those which recounted cats undertaking the role of therapy animals and providing immense comfort to the humans they share their world with. Here are a few of them:

Oscar: Oscar was one of 6 cats adopted by the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Rhode Island in the US. This centre is a hospice for those suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses where the patients have severe cognitive impairment. It became apparent after 6 months or so that Oscar had an extraordinary ability to predict when a patient was hours from death. He would often decide to nap next to the dying patient as if to provide comfort to them. Plus, it allowed staff to alert family members thereby giving them the opportunity to say goodbye. Oscar is considered to have accurately predicted up to 50 deaths at the hospice, and his story was the subject of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Clover: J Manerling was married with a 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son, Richard, when his wife suddenly and unexpectedly died. Richard was autistic and at 4 was still non-verbal. By a strange quirk before he had children of his own J Manerling was a neuroscientist and had worked with children who had neuropsychological disabilities. Through his work he’d been aware of the success that some children had had with interacting with animals. With this in mind they went about arranging numerous activities to allow Richard to interact with animals. There hadn’t been any interest expressed by him until the day they went to visit their local animal shelter. Initially walking past the cat shelter they went to where the dogs were housed but again no interest. In a ‘why the hell not’ moment, he and Richard went into the cat shelter where he spotted and pointed to a black and white tuxedo cat and said “Cat”! This was his first ever vocalised word. The cat was promptly taken home that day, and was named Clover because they discovered that Richard could pronounce it. His son proceeded to talk to Clover when he thought no-one was listening and so avoided being asked to repeat or explain himself. Richard is now 20 and at college majoring in art. While Clover went to cat heaven a number of years ago, the next generation of cats, Linus and Melody, moved in and helped Richard through high school and onto college.

Clementine & Princess Natalie: These two cats were considered unfit to be rehomed after there early mistreatment by humans made them scared and prone to lashing out as a form of defence. Scheduled to be put down they were taken in by a shelter who was establishing a pilot program to partner with a minimum security prison near Seattle. This program was hoping to provide an opportunity for selected inmates, and their furry cohabitants, to learn compassion, responsibility and about unconditional love. The cats, who had a long history of hissing and biting, came to live in the 3.5m x 3m cell with inmates Joey Conteras and Richard Amaro. They recount that when the cats first arrived they were moody, dysfunctional and prone to violence. Over a period of time they could be patted, brushed and held for a few minutes. The cats spend all of their time with their inmates and this includes their daily leashed walks. The cell has a scratching post, cat perches and the cat’s food bowls. The motivation for the inmates is to maintain their good behaviour otherwise their cat friends will be taken away and they will need to move back into a 40-man dormitory. Counsellors at the prison say that this program reinforces the concepts of teamwork and responsibilities, skills that the inmates will need when they re-enter society and to avoid recidivism. Now there’s a win-win for you.

Pussa & Soph thought that these were some stories that would make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the world. Something that is seems a bit scarce right now.